Not exactly the voice inside your head

What to think of the Palin interview

But Sarah Palin’s performance in the tiny vignettes of unscripted dialogue in which we’ve been allowed to see her has been nothing short of frightening — really, as I said, pity-inducing. And I say that as someone who has thought from the start that the criticisms of her abilities — as opposed to her ideology — were much too extreme. One of two things is absolutely clear at this point: she is either (a) completely ignorant about the most basic political issues — a vacant, ill-informed, incurious know-nothing, or (b) aggressively concealing her actual beliefs about these matters because she’s petrified of deviating from the simple-minded campaign talking points she’s been fed and/or because her actual beliefs are so politically unpalatable, even when taking into account the right-wing extremism that is permitted, even rewarded, in our mainstream. I’m not really sure which is worse, but it doesn’t really matter, because with 40 days left before the election, both options are heinous.

I too am perplexed with her performance. I may be giving her too much credit, but I’m having trouble believing she would be this bad if left to her own devices. I cannot conceive of a state electing a person to its highest office someone who when contradicted repeats word for word their previous answer as if they were a record player. Her handling reminds me of the assistance Katie Holmes received in her early days of Scientology.

Everyone is asking: how bad can the real Sarah Palin actually be? Without seeing it we are left to think it is even worse than what we are seeing. That scares me. You can watch some clips of the interview at balloon-juice.